Greek or Roman huh? I was thinking more along the line of Chinese or Japanese, but not as an urn. I seem to recall seeing one of these somewhere, which had pour spouts were the indentations for cigarettes are and it was set on the handles in a frame, in such a manner that allowed it to be tipped in order to pour whatever out of it. A few guesses I am toying with is a water bucket of some sort, the base to a mortar & pestle set or some sort of crucible for smelting a metal in, but that's likely my imagination or I'm confusing it with something similar.

Maybe all of that might jog someone's memory. I'm trying to come up with a name to give it besides ash tray. --- Mike

I was thinking along the lines of an ice bucket or something. You don't give the dimensions, but I'm assuming it's pretty small though? The indentations don't seem right for cigarettes do they? They're sloping downwards, which seems a bit odd.

It's an interesting pressed piece, the pink colour is peculiar too...I'm having trouble thinking of a country of origin, let alone maker!

This may be a silly question - but any scribbles on the bottom? Anything that looks like Chinese script? To me it looks like an incense vessel from The Grand in Taiwan, done in either pâte-de-verre or cast glass, their specialities. What say you, Max?

Now you say it, I think it is a possibility Ivo. I always forget about Grand Crystal. :roll: It's the odd combination of modern, ancient, and purpose that makes me think you could be right. Maybe based on an incense burner, as you suggest.

Not quite sure how to follow it up - let's hope Mike finds some ideograms on the base.

Thanks for looking at this piece and all of the suggestions. The bottom is blank and we're really only interested in whatever the design\shape of this item is mimicking, not so much the maker and age of it. I have also seen similar looking brass incense burners from the 60s-70s, which looked Chinese, but were made in India and I believe those were also just mimicking the design of something else. --- Mike

In the 1930s my father, a heavy smoker, had a huge, metal ash tray. This consisted of a very heavy metal base, maybe 12" diameter, into the top of which was screwed a vertical tube 2" diameter and maybe 30" long. At the top this belled out into a thing with cigarette grooves, carrying handle etc. The whole thing sat on the floor and the top was around waist high. This monster could hold months of debris in the bottom without too much smell coming out of the top!

The trunnions on the side of the present article immediately reminded me of this. Could it be from something similar - tilt to empty down the tube?

Many ash trays had the grooves inclined inwards, presumably so that fires would hopefully start inside the tray rather than outside.

I remember my grandparents having a floor standing ash tray like you describe. The ash tray above I doubt is that old, the pink color is too queer for that era I think and there is no wear on those trunnions\handles? or on the thin, raised mold seam which runs right down the middle of them. --- Mike